I would be very interested to know if any steps were taken to challenge this too.
However it has always beggared belief that somehow the British government has withstood legal challenges right up to European level, to their refusal to provide the standard annual pension increase to any pensioner who happens to be living outside of a very narrow list of countries or the UK. I have no idea how they can have got away with this but so far, they have. Which I woild regard as cruelty quite apart from any legality or unfairness.
@KarenLot …i know it seems strange as it is not really a discretionary purchase is it (!) … but here’s the answer in the FT
One of Germany’s best-known toilet paper brands, Düsseldorf-based Hakle, has already filed for insolvency, blaming soaring energy prices, high pulp prices, transport costs and the strength of the dollar.
Looking rather like the perfect storm. How on earth can a government get it so wrong. Markets voting very clearly, and I’m just amazed at the lack of intelligent foresight. Yet another reason for feeling very very pleased I made the move to France when I did! The instability and uncertainty in the UK has been absolutely dreadful since the whole Brexit saga kicked off. So so pleased to be out of all that!
Autumn is a-coming. Only prickly leaves left to use or as I used to say living in Bretagne, we could always use the cauliflower leaves, they are nice and big.
Agree lack of intelligence, no need to announce 19% tax band yet or say ‘more is coming’ at the weekend, enhancing 2.5% GBP/EUR drop at 1am Monday. Commentators saying ‘basic schoolboy error’ or ‘what grade A-level economics’?
Though… we’re only out of it if we’ve no pensions or other income from blighty and no £ savings - which I think you are? I think you’re dollared up?
You mentioned it’s all cyclical - good point, when we arrived in December 2020 to secure our WA rights I recall GBP / EUR was about 1.10 and I wasn’t wailing - that was what it was, wouldn’t have stopped me moving.
In this thread we’re assuming the UK government is merely incompetent - but we shouldn’t exclude the alternative view that they’re crashing the £ deliberately, as I mentioned in another thread:
EDIT - Discussion of this very point just appeared in The Guardian:
Seems to be some (probably temporary) stability emerging now around £1 to 1.11-1.12€.
But I guess the market has already discounted a big UK interest rate rise - so the £ will fall again if the Bank of England doesn’t step forward with one.
Bear in mind, incidentally, that high interest rates are only bad for net borrowers (ie, the poor); they’re good for the rich because they compensate for the erosion of wealth by inflation. This is why the rich favour interest rates as a means of fighting inflation, rather than increasing taxation, which would actually be more effective in this respect.
Oh and of course the fact that higher interest rates offset the benefit of lower stamp duty - an aspect the UK media is intent on pointing out - only affects those that have to borrow to buy houses - for the rich it’s just a bonus (an aspect the UK media never seems to point out…).
